Fairy Tales & Ghost Stories by Theodor Storm

by Robert Seidel Costic

The Mirror of Cyprianus

  The count’s palace – really it was a castle – was exposed on the height; ancient pines and oaks projected with their tops out of the depths; and over them and the forests and meadows that spread out below the mountain lay the spring sunshine. But inside mourning reigned, because the only little son of the count was diseased with an unexplained sickness, and the most distinguished doctors who were summoned were not able to recognize the origin of this evil.

  In the veiled chamber lay the boy sleeping with a bloodless face. Women sat at one side of the bed, beholding him with the strained look of concern; the old one in the clothing of a more genteel servant, the other unmistakably the lady of the house, almost still young except for the traces of past suffering in the pale, kind face. – In the most beautiful days of her youth the count courted the lady of little wealth; but with nothing more lacking than the “formal proposal” he had turned away. A rich, beautiful lady, who envied the poor lady for her stately consort and his domain, had ensnared the light-hearted man in her web of love; and while she entered as the mistress to the count’s palace, the one remained in the widow’s chamber of her mother.

  But the fortune of the young countess did not last. When, after a period of a year, she gave birth to the little Kuno, she was swept away by an evil puerperal fever; and after another year passed, the count then knew no better mother’s touch for his motherless son then she who he once spurned. And she with her still heart forgave the offense completely and became now his wife. – So she sat now caring and watching for her child of her formal rival.

  “He is sleeping quietly now,” said the old woman. “The Countess should rest a little.”

  “Not now, nurse,” replied the gentle woman, “I don’t need to. I’m sitting here all right in my soft armchair.”

  “But through so many nights! It is never a sleep if the person never comes out of the clothes.” And after a while she added: “There has never been such a stepmother here in the palace.”

  “You must not compliment me, nurse!”

  “Don’t you know the story of the mirror of Cyprianus?” ask the old woman in turn; and when the countess said no she continued. “So I’ll tell you; it’ll help distract the thoughts. And just look how the child sleeps, the breath goes so quietly out of the mouth! Take this cushion from below the cross, and now the little feet on the footstool here! And now wait a little while so I can remember correctly.”

  Then when the countess placed herself on the cushion and had nodded cordially to her, the experienced servant of the house began her story:

  “Over a hundred years ago a countess once lived in this palace; she had been called by all the people merely the good countess. The name was appropriate, because she was humble in her heart and did not despise the poor and lowly. But a happy countess she was not. If she went down in the village bringing help to the homes of the cottagers, so had she looked with suffering at the little band of children who often blocked the entrance to the low doors and thought: “What wouldn’t you give for a single such chubby angel!” For some ten years she lived with her husband, but their marriage remained unblessed; also a motherless child had not been laid in her arms by the Lord God, as with your Grace. The count had begun meanwhile to regard as ominous that the heir to his great domain had still not be born. – Oh dear God!” – interrupted the narrator – “The rich were going without; and the poor often wished in vain that they could have from their handful an angel or two in heaven who might pray for them.”

  “Tell more!” asked her mistress, and the old woman went on:

  “It was during the end of the great war and the castle here was often overrun by enemy and allied troops, that it happened one day that an old doctor who came into the country with the Swedes had been wounded by an imperial bullet in an encounter down below in the forest while he, awaiting the outcome, was keeping watch by his chests of medicine. The man, who was called Cyprianus, was carried here into the palace and, although the dominion was imperial, was cared for by the good countess with great devotion. The outcome was fortunately good – still there much time passed over it. The peace had already been closed when she still often strolled up and down in the little herb garden behind the palace by the side of the convalescing old man and listened to his speeches on the power and mysteries of nature. He had given her many tips and many remedies from the mountain’s herbs that would be used later for the benefit of her patients. And so a mutually rewarding friendship gradually emerged between the beautiful woman and the old, wise master.

  “Around this time the count, who for a year was in the field with the Emperor’s army, returned to his palace. When the first joy of reunion was now past, the doctor believed to recognize with his searching eyes the outline of a silent sorrow in the face of the good countess; but the modesty of the old man had always kept back a question about it from his lips. But when he one day saw a woman from the dark traveling people, who at that time were marching throughout the whole empire under their Duke Michael, sneak out of her chamber, then he had taken her hand in the evening at the pleasure stroll in the little garden and forcefully exhorted her: ‘Why did you allow, around noon, when your Lord takes his nap, that evil heathen into your chamber?’

  “The good countess was frightened; but when she looked in the mild face of the old man, she said, ‘I have a great sorrow, Master Cyprianus, and would like to know, whether a time will come where it would be taken from me.’

  “’So open your heart to me,’ he said; ‘perhaps that I know better advice than those traveling people who certainly understand the deception of the gullible but in no way the future!’

  “At these words the countess confided in the old master with her grief, and how she feared to lose even the heart of her husband through her childlessness.

  “They went during this along the circling wall of the little garden, and Cyprianus looked out over the forests lying below, on which the red evening light lay. ‘The sun is departing,’ he said, ‘and when it comes up tomorrow, it must see me on my journey to my homeland. But I owe you life and health, and so I want to offer, really a thank-you gift, that I will send to you through secure hands from home, don’t despair.’

  “’Must you really go, Master Cyprianus,’ said the grieving woman. ‘Then will my dearest comforter abandon me!’

  “‘Don’t lament over it, Madame Countess!’ he replied; ‘the gift of which I spoke, is a speculum, a mirror in German, manufactured during a special intersection of the constellations and in the most salutary time of year. Put it in your chamber and there use it for the manner of women, and it will be able to soon bring you better information than the deceptive people of the heathen. One regards me,’ added the man smiling mysteriously, ‘in my homeland as not ignorant of the things of nature.’” The narrator interrupted herself. – “You know well that the name Cyprianus later became known throughout the North as that of a powerful sorcerer. After his death they placed in chains the books that he wrote in the underground vaults of a castle because they believed that it was evil to include therein things that were dangerous to the salvation of the soul. But those that did that were in error, or they themselves were not pure of heart; because – as Cyprianus is reported to have often said during his stay in this house – ‘the powers of nature are never evil in the right hand.’

  “But I want to proceed with my story. – A few moons later, after the master had left the palace among comforting words of encouragement to both the noble spouses, that one day a cart with a great wooden chest halted in the courtyard; and when the count and his wife, who were standing idly in the window in the afternoon hours, had gone down driven by curiosity, a written letter on parchment was presented to them from the coachman. The crate contained the gift of thanks promised at his departure. ‘May’ – so the letter stated – ‘this mirror add as many days of joy to your life as it cost me hours of the most sacred work. But don’t forget, the end of all things is alw
ays in the hands of the unfathomable God.

  “’-- Only one thing is to be avoided. Never may the image of an evil act fall on this mirror; the healing forces that have assisted in its preparation would otherwise turn into their opposite; particularly may grow out of it a deathly danger to the children, that then - God grant it - will soon surround you, and only an expiation, sprung from the blood of the offender, would be able to restore the healing power of the mirror. However, the goodness of your house is so great that no such thing can happen; and thus receive with it in hope and confidence this gift from the hand of a thankful friend.’

  “And as the master requested, the spouses received his gift in hope and confidence. When the chest was carried into the hall and opened, the framework appeared first artfully worked in bronze. Then the mirror was lifted out, a tall, slim glass of a wonderful bluish light luster. ‘Is it not, my husband,’ said the countess, who threw a glance towards him, ‘as if the world reflected therein lies in a soft moonlight?’ The frame was of cut steel in whose thousands of facets of captured and refracted rays of light flashed like a colorful fire.

  “Soon the beautiful work was set up in the bedroom of the spouses, and on every morning while the maid stroked her blond hair or loosened the silken braids of her hair bun the good countess sat with folded hands in front of the mirror of Cyprianus and looked attentively and with hope at her own dear face. But when the morning sun shined on the facets of the frame, the image of the beautiful woman sat like in a wreath of star-like sparks. Often after his first tour through the field and forest her husband stepped again into the bedroom and leaned silently behind her chair; and if she saw him then in the mirror, she thought each time that his eyes looked a little less grim.

  “A considerable time passed when the countess one morning, after the chambermaid already left her, wanted to in passing still have another look in the mirror. But there appeared a haze on the glass so that she could not clearly see her face. She took her handkerchief and tried to whip it away, but it did not help; and she saw that it was not on, but within the glass. The closer she approached the mirror, so more clearly did her countenance step out of it; but if she stepped further back, then there was hovering like a rosy vapor between her and her mirror image. – Pensively she put her handkerchief away and went the day about the house silently and full of a quiet premonition, so that her husband, who met her in the hall said, ‘Why are you smiling so blissfully, woman of my heart?’ She was still silent and just put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  “But day by day, when her husband and her maid left, she stood in solitude before the mirror of the good master, and every morning she saw more clearly the little rose cloud floating in the glass.

  “So May had come, and from the little garden outside the scent of violets wafted through the open window; then the good countess stepped one morning again before the mirror. No sooner had she looked in than an “Ah!” of rapture broke out of her lips, and her hands went to her heart; because in the spring sun, which shone brightly in the mirror, she recognize clearly a sleeping child’s face that appeared from the little rose cloud. With bated breath she stood; she could not eat her full of the sight.

  “Then she heard a horn call from outside before the bridge, and she remembered that it must be her husband coming back from his hunt. She closed her eyes and stood still waiting until he, followed by his hound, came to her in the chamber. Then she embraced him with both arms, and pointing to the mirror she spoke quietly: ‘Greet the heir to your house!’ Now had the good count also recognized the tiny face in the little rose cloud; but the flash of joy from his eyes disappeared at once, and the countess saw in the mirror as he turned pale. ‘Don’t you see it?’ she whispered.

  “’Of course I see it, woman of my heart,’ he replied, ‘but it frightens me that the little child cries.’

  “She turned to him and cradled his head. ‘You foolish man,’ she said, ‘he is slumbering, it’s smiling in a dream.’

  “And so it remained with them both. He was worried, but she prepared in cheerful mood with her housekeeper the cradle together with down pillows and the little delicate clothes for the future heir of the house. Sometimes, when she stood before the mirror, she stretched out her arms to the little rose cloud like in a fantastic desire, but when her finger pressed on the cold surface of the mirror she would let her arms sink again and thought of a saying of Cyprianus: ‘Everything has its time.’

  “And her hour came. The little cloud in the mirror disappeared, and instead there lay a rosy boy on the white linen of their bed. It gave great joy to the palace and down in the village, and as the good count rode through the smiling open fields, he let the reins strike the neighing golden fox-colored horse and cried jubilantly out in the sunshine, “My son is born!”

  “After she started attending church again after the six weeks of child birth confinement, one saw her go again in the warm summer days to the cottagers of the village; only that she now no longer looked on in sorrow at the peasant children. She often stood long and bent down to them and led them in their games; and wherever she saw a truly strong boy she thought as well, ‘Mine is still stronger than him!’

  “But, as Cyprianus had written, the end rests in the hand of unknowable God. – In the fall an evil fever fell over the village. People died; but before they died, they lay languishing and supplicating on their beds. And the good countess did not let them wait on her. She went with the ancient wisdom of the old master into the huts; she sat on the beds of the sick and wiped with her handkerchief the last sweat off their foreheads when death came. But finally, as little Kuno reached the first half of his year, death, which had snatched so many lives, came himself into to the palace with her; and after her poor cheeks had burned in the fever like two dark roses, he stretched her out white and cold on her bed. Then all the joy was gone. The count rode with sunken head through his open fields and let his horse go as it wanted. ‘Now I know why my poor boy had to cry even before birth,’ he always said to himself, ‘because mother’s love is only once in the world.’

  “Alone stood the ornate mirror in the bedroom; and as often as the early sun sprayed its sparks on the steel wreath of the frame, the image of the good countess no longer sat therein. ‘Take it away,’ said the count one morning to his house caretaker; ‘the flashing hurts my eyes!’ – The house master let the mirror be brought in a remote chamber in the upper floors, where it served at the time as storage for all kinds of old weapons; and as the servants that carried it up left, the old man took a black shroud from the funeral burial of the good countess and thus veiled the artwork of the Master Cyprianus so that no light could touch it henceforth.

  “But the count was still young; and when a couple years had passed in the land and the powerful boy began to romp around the wide corridors of the palace, the count thought: ‘It’s fitting that you seek for your son a new mother to raise him in noble manners as befits his heritage.’ And he thought further: ‘At the court of the emperor there are many gracious women; it would be bad if you did not find the right one.’ A voice that was also in his ears said, ‘A mother for the child, a wife for you; the love of a woman is a sweet drink!’ And so, when May came once again, the travel things were prepared and the count went with his boy accompanied by stately attendants to the large city of Vienna.

  “They stayed away for a long time, and the old house caretaker went around into the upper empty chambers and opened the windows wide so that the effects that once served the good mistress would not perish in the enclosed air. But finally, when the threads of autumn already flew over the fields, many boxes arrived one after another with expensive carpets, gold-pressed leather wall coverings, and all types of fashionable things, as it had never been seen by the servants there, and the house master received orders to prepare the large rooms of the ground floor for the new countess.”

  The old storyteller paused for a few moments, because the little patient had t
hrown off the bedcover in sleep. But then, as she carefully covered him again and the boy continued to sleep, she began again:

  “You know her, dear countess, the life-size image of the woman that hangs in the Knights Assembly Hall up next to the fireplace should be a similar likeness to you. She is a little fox with gold-red hair, like those who are so dangerous to men, especially the older ones. I have often regarded her in this – how she so lightly throws back her head and how the mouth so sweetly and deceitfully smiles and the gold-colored hair flies in loose lovelocks over the white neck, then perhaps even someone with cooler blood than that the good count not been able to withstand. – I just want to say, she had been a young widow and had to leave behind a child from this first marriage, a little daughter, who was left behind with the relatives of her deceased husband in the imperial city. This much is certain, to this castle here that daughter never came.

  “But now! At last the carriage rattled into the courtyard; and the assembled servants looked on in amazement as the count and the foreign-speaking young lady’s maid helped the lady out of the wagon. And as she now stepped up the stairs in her almond-colored silk dress with slight nods of her head, there your delicate ear would have heard several softly whispered admiring words about the beauty of the new countess.

  “It was only when the lady had disappeared into the door, that the little Kuno climbed out of the following servant wagon. ‘Oh, squire,’ cried a red-cheeked maid to him, ‘You have a beautiful mother now!’ But the boy frowned and said defiantly, ‘She is not my mother!’ And the old housemaster, who had just returned from accompanying the lord, said darkly to the strumpet: ‘Don’t you see that that is the son of the good countess!’ And looking tenderly into the blue eyes of the boy, he took him by the arm and bore him into his father’s house.

  “There from now on the strange woman ruled. The servants praised her affability, and the poor in the village soon thought she had even more generous hand than the deceased; only she did not care at all about the children, and also one could not complain to her about their difficulties as before to the good countess. – While she captivated most of the palace occupants with her beauty, the housemaster had only a cold view of her; it displeased him that she proceeded, as he said, ‘dressed like a Jezebel,’ even on weekdays. He did not trust the caresses with which she sometimes showered little Kuno in his and the count’s presence. And even the boy himself she did not win over; he had nothing for her but a silent gaze; and when her arms and eyes let go of him, he ran outside into the open, took his little crossbow and fired at a wooden bird that the house master had carved for him; or he sat in the evening in the room of his old friend and read in a large book about the joys of noble hunting. –

  “The good count saw nothing but the beauty of his wife. If he went into the room and encountered her, she stood smiling until he embraced her; had she faced the beautiful neck to the door, she likely picked up the hand mirror that hung on a golden chain from her belt from the folds of her silken skirt and nodded to them from the mirror’s surface.

  “But when the spring came back, a the boy contracted a fever from the damp moss of the forest, and he lay in the restless slumber of the sick on his pillow. Next to the bed stood the chair of the good countess with the carved back and the blue velvet padding, on which she often had sat in front of the mirror of Master Cyprianus, as once in the spring air the violet fragrance blew to her in the open window; but now the chair stood empty. The beautiful stepmother was also present and sat next to the count at the foot of the little bed; because she could see how the father worried about his child and didn’t want to let himself be absent. The boy then called out from his fever, ‘Mother, mother!’ and rose from his pillows with open eyes. ‘Do you hear, my husband!’ the beautiful woman said, ‘Our son asked for me!’ But when she got up and bent down to him, the child reached with his arms past her to the empty chair of the good countess.

  “The count grew pale, and overcome from the sorrow of the sudden memory, he fell to his knee beside the bed of his son. The proud woman stepped back, and as she secretly clenched the little fist around her belt she left the room never to step into it again. But the boy became healthy even without her care.

  “Soon after, as the rose buds sprouted outside, the countess bore a little boy. But the count did not know why it felt so heavy in his heart as the little Kuno ran toward him with this news. He indeed left his horse to be led out of the stall in order to ride with his thoughts out into the heath, but not in order to cry out jubilantly over the meadow and lake. As he sat level in the stirrup, the old housemaster raised little Kuno to him on the saddle and said, ‘Don’t forget the son of the good countess!’ The father closed his arms around the child and rode with him uphill and down – away, until the sun had sunk; but when they rode over on the return home under the windows of the chapel, in which were the countship’s burial vaults, there he let his horse go slower and whispered in the boy’s ear: ‘Don’t forget that mother’s love is only once in the world!’ – At his entrance in the room of the woman lying in maternal confinement the waiting nurse laid the newly born in his arms, he was overcome by nostalgia for the dead, and he suddenly knew that she alone was the woman of his heart; the boy, although of his blood, was like a stranger to him, because he was not also of her blood. The eyes of the countess, which were now more beautiful than ever as a result of her confinement, exercised no further magic on him. He rode alone through the fields; a word from Master Cyprianus stood like a dark writing before his eyes: ‘Living in the past is even with God’s help not permitted!’

  “Meanwhile the boys grew up together, and soon a great love between them showed itself. When little Wolf could first go into the open with him, Kuno became his teacher in all the arts that are practiced by boys. He let him climb over rocks and up into trees, he carved little quarrels for him for his little crossbow, and shot with him at the target or even after an unreachable bird of prey that was reconnoitering over them in the sunlight.

  “So once again winter had come, when one evening a man in the uniform of an imperial colonel came riding with his servant into the palace courtyard. – Hager was his name, and a gaunt, bony man he was said to have been, with an angular forehead and small, fierce eyes; the shaggy, straw-yellow beard – it was said – stood out from him like rays from his chin and the wings of his nose. He called himself a cousin of the first husband of the countess and was, as he said, just come for a visit; but he stayed from one week to another and gradually became regarded a permanent member of the household. The count had not initially concerned himself with the visit; but the colonel soon showed himself to be a master of the art of hunting, and as the first snow fell, the two men went together into the pine thicket, and from now on one could hear almost daily the roaring of the hounds and the ‘Ho Ridoh’ of the hunters through the silent forest. Then one afternoon during a boar hunt the hunting horn of the colonel sounded from a remote valley floor, where he without attendants became lost with the count; and when the handler of the hounds and the hunters, following the calls, met together there, they saw the boar laid dead between the fir trees; but there next to it also lay the count in his blood. The colonel stood leading on his hunting spear, his hunting horn in hand. ‘Your boar spear was useless,’ he said shortly, ‘the boar beat them back;’ and as they all stood there paralyzed by fright, he glared at them with his little, fierce eyes: ‘Why do you stand still! Break branches into a litter and carry your lord into the palace!’ And the people did as he commanded.

  “But the count did not go again with the colonel on the hunt. For when the old housemaster wanted to send the groom to a doctor so that the wound could be examined, he received notice that the doctor was not necessary, the count was already dead.

  “And soon he rested in the burial vault by his good countess, and little Kuno was a father- and motherless child. But the colonel remained in the palace as before, and the countess permitted it, so imp
erceptibly one portion after another of the count’s regiment went into his hand. Although the servants grumbled when he hectored them with his sharp voice, they did not dare resist the fierce man. – Even with both the boys he busied himself. One morning, when Kuno went down into the stable, next to the black horse of the colonel stood a little black Northlands horse with a red gold-embroidered saddlecloth. ‘That is your own,’ said the colonel, who had entered with him, ‘climb up so that I can show you how a man should sit on a horse.’ Soon he saw that even little Wolf got a horse, and now he taught the both riding according to the rules of the art. It was not long before one saw the lanky colonel ride on his long-legged black horse between the two boys on their little Northlands horses over the fields. But it was strange conversations he would have with them. If they once got into a squabble, as it happens with children, he bent down from his high black horse and whispered to the elder, “You are the lord; from the court you can banish the boy!” and then to the younger on the other side: “He wants to show you that you ride on his ground and land!” But such words only caused the boys to immediately desist from their quarrels, even to jump from their horses and fall weeping in each other’s arms.

  “The colonel was perceptive; he had certainly noticed how the eyes of the beautiful countess, if she saw the stepson going with her own son out the door, became overtaken by a sudden darkness and how her glances irritably and malevolently followed the one leaving.

  “On a sunny afternoon he stood with her in the little herb garden where the good countess once listened to the wisdom of the Master Cyprianus. As this proud woman looked out over the surrounding wall to the forests and meadows lying below, he said warily: ‘Kuno will accede to a beautiful domain when he comes into his own years.’ And as she silently and with only dark eyes stared into the distance, he added, ‘Your Wolf is a delicate little plant; but Kuno appears born for rule, he looks long lived and robust.’

  “At this moment came both the boys flying forward on their horses on the meadow which lay in the depths below the little garden. They rode so close together that the Kuno’s brown locks waved together with the blond ones of little Wolf. The horse of the latter shook its mane and whinnied loudly into the sunshine. The mother was afraid and let out a scream; but Kuno put his arm around his brother, and as they trotted by he threw a proud, lustrous glance up to those standing above.

  “’How do you like these eyes, beautiful countess?’ asked the colonel.

  “She was startled and roamed with an uncertain glance over him.

  “’What do you mean?’ she whispered then.

  “But he replied similarly, his hand on her chin, ‘Count on me, beautiful woman; the colonel is your truly loyal servant!’

  “She then whispered, and he saw how her face became deadly pale, ‘The eyes please me more if they were closed.’

  “’And what would you give if you could see such beauty?’

  “She laid for a moment her white hand on his; then she threw back her shining locks and stepped without looking back out of the little garden.

  “When an hour later little Kuno roamed through the corridors of the upper floor he saw the colonel standing in a window niche. The boy wanted to get past, for the man looked so sinister there. But he was addressed, ‘Where are you running, boy?’

  “’To the old armory,’ said Kuno, ‘I want to get my crossbow.’

  “’So I’ll go with you.’ And the colonel walked beside the boy there to the remote room, where the mirror of Cyprianus stood still covered with the heavy shroud among all sorts of weapons. When they had entered the colonel shot the locking iron bolt and stood with his back to the door. As the boy saw the man’s wild eyes he screamed, ‘Hager, Hager, you want to kill me!’

  “’That’s not a bad guess,’ said the colonel and grabbed at him. But the boy sprang away under his hands and tore from the wall his cocked crossbow, which he had previously hung there during the day. He shot, and the impression of his quarrel you could still see to this day in the oak paneling; but he did not hit the colonel.

  “Then he threw himself on his knees and cried: ‘Let me live; I will give you my little Northland horse and also the beautiful red saddle!’

  “The dark man stood with folded arms before him. ‘Your Northlands horse,’ he replied, ‘does not run fast enough for me.’

  “’Dear Hager, let me live!’ cried the boy again; ‘if I grow up, I will give you my palace and all the beautiful forests that belong to it.’

  “’I want to get that sooner,’ said the colonel.

  “The boy thus lowered his head and cried, ‘So I surrender myself to the mercy of God!’

  “’That’s the right word!’ said the evil man. But the boy sprang once again and flew along the walls of the chamber; the colonel chased after him like a wild animal. But when they came to the shrouded mirror the boy tangled his feet in the shroud so that he suddenly fell to the floor. There was also the evil man over him. – –

  “At this same moment – it is said – ‘as he swung blows with his fists and the boy his little hands crossed protectively over his heart, the old housemaster stood deep below in the farthest chamber of the cellar, where a servant was occupied with the tapping of an Ingelheim wine barrel. ‘Didn’t you hear, Kasper?” he said and put the little lamp that he held in his hand on the barrel.

  “The servant shook his head.

  “’I did,’ said the old one, ‘It was to me as if I heard the lord Kuno call my name.’

  “’You’re mistaken, Master,’ replied the servant; ‘down here nothing can be heard!’

  “So it stood; then the old one cried again: ‘Oh God, Kasper, it called me again; there was a cry of distress out of my lord’s throat!’

  “The servant went on with his work. ‘I hear only the red wine running from the barrel,’ he said.

  “But the old man did not allow himself to be reassured; he climbed up the palace and went from door to door, first on the ground floor and then up to the upper story. When he opened the door to the remote armory, there glowed the mirror of Cyprianus, on which the evening sun shined. ‘What ruthless hand has torn this off?’ murmured the elder; when he lifted the shroud from the ground he saw underneath it the body of the boy and saw the dark locks lying over the closed eyelids.

  “The old man fell to his knees and threw himself moaning over him. He loosened the clothes and looked at the body of his dear for the sign of death. But he found nothing except for a dark red spot over the heart. For a long time he remained grim and brooding on his knees. Then he wrapped the boy in the shroud, took him in his arms and carried him to the ground floor to the room of the countess. As he entered, he saw the proud woman death-pale and trembling before the colonel, who, it seemed, grasped her hand partly with force.

  “There laid the elder the body between the both on the floor, and his eyes glued hard on them he said, ‘The hereditary lord Kuno is dead; your little son, Madame Countess, is now the heir of this domain.’

  “It might have been a month after the burial of the young heir when the countess one afternoon leaned on the railing of a little balcony that, hanging over the depths, permitted an access from her room into the open air. Little Wolf stood beside her and watched a flock of birds which were busy with loud cries in the treetops of the pines and oaks that towered up from below.

  “’Look!’ said the countess. ‘They’re screaming at the owl; it’s sitting there next to the knothole in the oak.’ And she pointed with a finger before her.

  “The boy’s eyes followed with eagerness. ‘I see it already, Mother,’ he said; ‘that is the bird of death; it screamed in front of window when poor Kuno died.’

  “’Take your crossbow and shoot it!’ said the mother.

  “The boy jumped out of the window, down the steps, and into the stable. There lay the crossbow beside his little horse. But the string was broken; he had not used it for a long time because Kuno was no longer there to carve
the quarrels for him and stick the wooden bird to the stake. – He then ran back to the palace. He remembered that his brother used to hang his crossbow up in the armory. When he arrived there in the remote part of the palace and had pushed himself with great difficult through the heavy oak door, the mirror of Cyprianus shined against him with its bluish glow. The steel facets of the frame sparkled in the last ray of the evening sun. The boy had never seen it; whenever he came here before with his brother, the artwork had been always covered with the heavy shroud. Now he stood before it and saw in amazement his own image in this splendor; he seemed to have completely forgotten the crossbow. – There must have been something besides he himself in the mirror that captured from him his whole mind, for he knelt down and put his forehead against the glass so as to look into it as closely as possible.

  “But suddenly he grabbed for his heart with both hands. Then he sprang into the air up with a scream of pain. ‘Help!’ he screamed, ‘Help!’ and still once with a penetrating scream: ‘Help!’ Then the mother heard it below on the balcony; and in deathly fear she wandered from passage to passage, from door to door. ‘Wolf! Where are you, Wolf?’ she cried. ‘Answer me!’ And finally she came to the right door. There lay the child, writing in convulsions of death on the floor.

  “She threw herself over him. ‘Wolf! Wolf! What happened?’ she cried.

  “The boy stirred his pale lips. ‘It gave me a blow to the heart,’ he stammered.

  “’Who, who did it?’ whispered the mother. ‘Wolf, speak only a single word more; who did it?’

  “The boy pointed with a raised finger at the mirror. And holding the dying child in her arms, she looked bent forward into the glass of Cyprianus. But while looking, horror appeared in her face, and her light-blue eyes became hard as diamonds. For in the evening light that broke through the cloudy window she saw in the deepest background like a compact sphere of fog the figure of a child; how mournfully he crouched on the floor and seemed to sleep. She threw a nervous glance behind her in the room; but there lay only the twilight in the corners. Again, as if she exorcised it, she looked with anxious eyes in the mirror, and he was still lying there. – Then she felt the head of little Wolf slipping in her arms, and in the same moments she saw a gentle smoke move towards the glass mirror. Like a breath it ran over it. Then the glass was clear again; but behind it it moved like a little gray cloud into the depths; and now suddenly she saw there in the depths of the mirror like two little hazy figures who embraced.

  “With a scream the countess sprang up; her son lay motionless with waxen pale face; the open blue lips proclaimed his death. – She tore the silk waistcoat from his chest; there she saw the dark red mark on his heart that she had just seen on the chest of little Kuno. ‘Hager, Hager!’ she screamed – because the secret of the mirror was unknown to her – ‘that is your fist! He was also in your way; but you are not the lord in the palace, and I swear you will never become it!’

  “She went down; she sought him; but the colonel had just ridden to a neighboring palace to hunt and had said that he would return in the morning.

  “The sudden death of the last son of the count spread a dull terror among the servants. On the stairs and corridors they stood and whispered to each other, and if the countess approached they stole timidly away. It became night. The body of little Wolf was carried down and lay stretched out on his little bed in the chamber. But the countess had no rest by the dead. In the light moonshine, while everyone slept, she climbed up to the armory. There she stood before the mirror that shone in the blue light, looking in with staring eyes and twisted her hands around each other. Then again, as if a sudden horror had driven her, she plunged out of the chamber and ran through all the passages until she reached the door of her bedroom and slammed it shut behind her. – So passed the night.

  “As the housemaster wanted to step into the room of the countess the next morning, he heard harsh and violent talking inside. He recognized the voice of the colonel, who had just returned; and soon the countess answered in the same way. These were words of deadly hatred that the elder heard. Shaking his head he stepped back from the door. ‘Such are the judgments of God!’ he said and climbed a staircase higher up to the platform of the round tower, for he felt he had to inhale God’s clean air.

  “He leaned over the parapet and looked out into the sunny morning. ‘How beautifully the forests flourish!’ he said to himself. ‘And they are all dead! The good countess and the count, my boy Kuno, and now even little Wolf!’

  “—Then he heard from below on the courtyard a horse being led out of the stable; not long after that, the sound of galloping hoofs thundered over the drawbridge; then less audibly outside on the road, and over out of the crowns of the old oak trees that stood alongside flew the ravens cawing into the air.

  “In this same moment came up from below a cry of the women; and when the old man had descended, it came to him from all sides, the countess lay slain in her blood. – ‘Where is the colonel?’ asked the housemaster. ‘He’s gone,’ said the servant who came up from the courtyard, ‘along with his long-legged black horse.’

  “The pursuit was quickly arranged by the elder; but the next morning all the lather-covered steeds returned home without having succeeded. – ‘So let us then bury the dead,’ he said, ‘and send a messenger to the new lord of this beautiful estate!’

  “And so it happened,” the storyteller concluded her report, “the lordship came to an ancestor of your husband, who was next in the bloodline. The old housemaster is said to have lived long after his arrival there below in the gatehouse, a loyal guard at the tomb of his beloved nobles.”

  “That’s a terrible story!” said the countess as the nurse was silent. “But did you not hear what the first husband of the unfortunate woman was called?”

  “Of course,” replied the old woman, “her widow’s name is on the frame of the picture.” And hereupon she is named one of the first noble families.

  “Strange!” said the countess, “so it my ancestor!”

  That old woman shook her head. “Impossible,” she said, “You, Madame Countess, from the blood of that evil woman?”

  “It is quite certain, nurse; that daughter that stayed back in Vienna became the wife of my ancestors.” – –

  The conversation was interrupted by the entrance of the doctor. The boy still lay in a death-like slumber and did not awake as the hand of the doctor searched for the signs of life on his little limbs.

  “Is it true, will he recover?” asked the countess as she looked anxiously into the closed face of the doctor.

  “The question is too much for one man,” he replied, “but Madame Countess must sleep; it is quite necessary.” And when she made remonstrance he continued, “Nothing will happen to the patient until the morning, I know that; the nurse can keep the vigil.

  Finally she was persuaded and went into her bedroom once the doctor explained that he would not leave the house until he was sure of it.

  When the old woman was alone with him, she asked, “Are you sure that Madame Countess may sleep in peace?”

  “For the specified time, yes.”

  “And then, good doctor?”

  “Then, once your ladyship has slept, then you may prepare her; because the boy must die.”

  “The old woman looked with firm eyes on the doctor. “Is it quite certain?” she asked.

  “Quite certain, nurse, because it would take a miracle.”

  – – The doctor had left, and instead the countess now shared with a young maid the vigil with the old woman. She rested her head on the edge of the bed and observed the pale face of little Kuno, in whom death already engraved its sharp features. “A miracle!” she murmured twice. “A miracle!”

  Then the boy stirred on his pillow. “I want to play with the children!” he whispered.

  The old woman opened wide her eyes. “With what children?” she asked softly.

  And the boy said lik
ewise in sleep, “With the mirror children, nurse!”

  She almost screamed. “Unlucky child, so you have looked into the mirror of Cyprianus! – – But it should be standing in the vestry; and the vestry is walled in!” She reflected for a moment; then she said to the girl, “Get me Vincent, Ursel!”

  Vincent, the groom, came. – “Have you recently been at the construction in the chapel?” asked the old woman.”

  “I’m there every day.”

  “Is the vestry open?”

  “That happened a fortnight ago.”

  “Did you see a mirror there?”

  He reflected. “Well of course, it stood there in a corner; the frame seemed of steel, but the rust had eaten it.”

  The old woman gave him a large carpet. “Cover the mirror carefully!” she said. “Then carry it here into the room. But quietly, so that the boy doesn’t awake.”

  Vincent went, and soon a tall object covered with the carpet was carried by him and a worker into the room.

  “Is that the mirror, Vincent?” the nurse asked; and when he had affirmed it she continued, “Stand it at the foot of the bed, so that little Kuno can look in as soon as the carpet is taken away.”

  After the mirror was set up and the carriers had departed, the old woman sat again at the side of the bed. “A miracle must happen!” she said to herself. Then she sat with closed eyes like a stone image; hope and fear fought unseen inside hear. She waited on the future return of the countess; but how long would she still have to wait until the sleep would have entirely left the awakened woman.

  Then the door opened, and the countess came in. “I couldn’t fall sleep, nurse,” she said, “forgive me! You are as faithful and good and more understanding than I am, and yet I feel like I should not leave the bed of the child.”

  The old woman did not respond to this. “Tell me again, Madame Countess,” she said, and her heart beat so wildly that she could hardly get the words out, “are you quite certain that the evil woman was your ancestor?”

  “I am quite certain. But why do you ask, nurse?”

  The old woman stood up, and with a firm hand she tore the carpet from the mirror.

  The countess screamed aloud. “My child, my child! That is the mirror of Cyprianus!” – When she had but thrown a glance at the soft glow of the glass, she saw therein little Kuno lay with open eyes on his pillow; she saw him smile, and the ruddiness of good health flew like a breath onto his cheeks. She turned around; there he already sat upright, fresh and flourishing.

  “The children! The children!” he cried with a bright, ringing voice and stretched his arms out to the mirror.

  “Where are they?” asked the countess.

  “There, there!” cried the old woman. “Just look, they smile, they nod, oh! And they have wings; they’re two little angels!”

  “What are you talking about? asked the countess. “I don’t see them.”

  “There, there!” little Kuno cried again. – “Oh!” he sadly continued, “now they have flown away.”

  Then the old nurse sank back on the chair. “Our Kuno is saved!” she cried and broke into out sobs. “Your love has done that and has taken away the curse from the work of the old master!”

  But the countess stood and looked blissfully smiling into the mirror. On its surface swam the whiff of a little rosy cloud, from it clearly gleamed out a slumbering child’s face. “Wolf he should be called if it is a boy; Wolf and Kuno!” she whispered softly. “And let us pray, nurse, that they become happier than those who formerly bore those names!”